Revenge or Karma ?

In Buddhism, Karma is whatever one does or says, from those actions, the intentions bring about fruit either within the present life or in context of a future birth (Wikipedia). I really like the way this is put.  I am not sure I act with Karma in mind but it is a word that fits with my experience with T’s dad.

A couple of weeks ago saw the last meeting between me, T, T’s dad and his wife and children and the Guardian as directed by the Judge when he made the last order.  It follows 4 lots of contact which seems, by and large, to have gone well.  This meeting was to assess these contact sessions, ascertain how me and T’s dad will manage to organise future contact, see how T feels about overnight stays and summarise with the Guardian thereby bringing to an end court being involved with us – hurrah !

During the past 10 years, and I am going to be really honest here, I have wished over and over again that T’s dad would drop dead, get a taste of his own medicine, have something terrible happen to him, I wished he would drop of the side of the world or just be gone from my life because there just seemed to be no way around him.  I couldn’t begin to trust him, believe him or ever think that he was the best parent to bring up our child.  I simply did not have the tools to deal with how I felt about what he had done to me and especially to our son.

I wanted revenge for the pain he caused me by his actions and thoughtlessness.  I wanted him to feel hurt the way he hurt me.  I wanted him to feel the agony of not knowing how his child was, where he was or whether he loved me or even if thought of me.

If I think about it though, revenge is a funny thing, to want to give back to someone who has ‘hurt’ you by their actions suggests that you would have to do the same thing back to them that they did to you in order to cause them to feel the same way you did.  This brings up questions for me like, could you?  Really, could you?  I know I thought I could, in the moment of excruciating pain, I thought I was capable of anything, such was my pain and the lack of control, my inability to rid myself of how much I hurt.  I seemed to me that the only way I could rid myself of those feelings would be to put them back onto the person that had taken my son away, thereby dumping my feelings.

But when it comes down to it, despite feeling like it, it just isn’t in my makeup to do those things back, I suppose it is the fact that I know how much it hurt, that I would not want to be the cause of that towards anyone else and more importantly, putting T through another parent feeling like they could kill is a terrible example for him.

What I found out at the end of 10 years is that payback came without me having to do anything (and maybe it already had but I didn’t witness it). The lesson I had on friday was I didn’t need to do anything because Karma had worked it’s magic, the fruit of T’s dads actions came back to him. The universe provided him with his own set of difficulties and pain.  It came in the shape of T telling his dad that he was not ready to come and stay overnight.  T’s dad told T he was so hurt by this, T held his own, not being manipulated or feeling like he needed to put his fathers feelings before his own or need to fix the situation and try and make it better.  I was so immensely proud of T, he did an amazing job of asserting himself, holding his own and getting his needs met despite his father putting pressure on him by suggesting that he would miss out on his brother and sister.  I stepped in at this point and suggested that T may wish to spend some 1 to 1 time with his dad first and the children are still under 3 and I couldn’t help but think of how much hurt this had caused my 2 older children, but they were older and old enough to know and remember their little brother.  T seemed to know what he needed to do and say though.

So T will continue to see his dad 4 hours a month or more if he feels like it and we can build on it.  T’s dad had to accept this and how the tables have turned.  For so many years, I felt so powerless when his father refused to let me see T and told me any number of reasons as to why, from ‘because I said so’ to ‘T doesn’t want to see you’ aged 6!

During the meeting, I sat quietly and just listened to T and his dad speaking and saw just how far we have come in this last year.  Given the chance, our relationship has flourished and T feels secure and happy most of the time.  We still have our challenges and it’s not all plain sailing but I saw that the foundations we put in when T was first born, the bond, despite my worst fears, was never broken. We still have some bricks to lay but we are heading in the right direction.

Alienation has expanded my ability to accept the things I cannot change, despite, at times, hating what I had to accept. I had no choice but to try and deal with the situation.  At times I don’t think I did deal with it.  I sank so low and had to keep pulling myself out of the mire, hard, sad work.  At the meeting, I saw a touch of that reflected in T’s dad on that day. When T’s dad said he was so hurt by T not wanting to stay, I had to bit my tongue in order not to say ‘now you know how it feels’.  What I did say was that T’s dad has made T, T-centric, everything revolved around what T wanted thereby making T responsible for his own choices.  I said that was why we had parents because children cannot make all their own decisions, otherwise they would never take a bath, eat vegetables and do homework or maybe see the absent parent, especially if the alienating one is encouraging it.

I have a responsibility to make sure that T does continue to see his dad on a regular basis and to carry on working through the difficulties when they arise.  My goal is to give T a happy and healthy view of relationships and no matter how broken and damaged they are, we can still treat each other with respect for the role we each play in our childs’ life.

Acceptance is not taught in schools and should be for it is key to everything that is so very difficult in our lives.  If we don’t accept these things we cannot change, we remain hating, we remain hugely angry and we remain stuck.

T is now 13, he is very bright, intelligent and chatty but his handwriting is terrible and he is stuck in his thinking that he cannot improve.  Another reason to hate his dad for taking T away from school for 3 years or another reason to be thankful that he came back to me so that I can assist him in gently nudging his very fragile esteem and worth in order for him to expect more of himself than staying stuck in his story of ‘I can’t'? Well, two sides of the same coin maybe.

T was due to see his dad this weekend and we got a call early on Saturday morning saying he was ill and had to go to hospital.  I took the opportunity to let T know that his dad loves him and that he felt terrible about letting him down.  His dad was beating himself up and making a really huge deal about it.  T understood perfectly that by his dad taking care of himself, it may ensure he stays on this mortal coil a little longer for his other children too.  I talked to T about being let down and how sometimes it was unavoidable, I had breast cancer a few years ago and couldn’t always make it for contact and his dad gave me hell.  I am taking the opportunity to handle it in a careful and understanding way to give T some balance and insight.

So, Karma comes to all of us in one way or another and there is learning in every situation we find ourselves in, if we stop being blinded by our difficult feelings for a minute, we can see it but it takes hard work and discipline and those are 2 things I am still learning how to do better.